Fact Wizard
Aediles
Posts : 76
Join date : 2021-09-10
 |  Subject: Brainwashing that planted the seeds of the Holocaust Sat 08 Jan 2022, 11:52 | |
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Joseph Goebbels hatred of the Jews, probably exceeded that of Adolf Hitler, he was constantly appealing to Hitler to implement anti-Jewish measures at a faster rate. Soon after the Nazis came to power in January 1933, Hitler created the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, it was headed by Joseph Goebbels. Its aim was to ensure that the ideology of Nazism was successfully communicated through art, music, theatre, films, books, radio, educational materials, and the press. Goebbels was a master of the art of propaganda, and so started the indoctrination of the German people, which conditioned them into general acceptance of the atrocities that followed. One of the main areas of this brainwashing was Jew-hatred, from the moment the Nazis took power, a propaganda campaign created an atmosphere of tolerance of violence against Jews, these were particularly prominent in 1935, before the Nuremberg Race Laws in September of that year. The Kristallnacht [violence against the Jews, burning of synagogues and Jewish businesses] in November 1938, was followed by a barrage of anti-Jewish economic legislation. It is interesting to note that in 1933 there were a total of 523,000 Jews in Germany, an insignificant total, under !% of the population, this figure started to reduced, mainly through immigration, and at the commencement of war in September 1939, it stood at around 300,000. Films in particular played a big role in promoting racial anti-Semitism, Nazi films portrayed Jews as cultural parasites, consumed by sex and money. Newspapers played their role in promoting Jew-hatred, the most virulent of these was Der Sturmer, published by Julius Streicher, a Jew-baiting fanatic, it used anti-Semitic caricatures by way of cartoons. One of the most effective areas of brainwashing, were the schools, children were taught about the “racial superiority of Aryans” and the “evil character of Jews”, they were indoctrinated with an ideology which represented Jews and other races to be inferior to Aryans, children were repeatedly told “The Jew is our greatest enemy, beware of the Jews”. When WW2 started in September 1939, Hitler had been in power for over six years, during which time his super efficient propaganda machine had brainwashed the majority of Germans into a mindset of hostility towards Jews. By the time of the the Nazi invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, a highly civilised nation had been conditioned into state of complicity, as the brutality leading up to the Holocaust commenced. As the campaign in the East progressed, there is no doubt that many Germans were aware of the atrocities being carried out against the Jews, their relatives serving on the Eastern front [some actively involved in the killings] would pass on information by letter, or when on leave, and those Germans who had only heard rumours, mostly remained indifferent.
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